Diversity & Feminism

Advocating for Inclusion: A roundup of ideas from post-TEDx636 roundtable

December 13, 2010

“Building on TED and the TEDWomen Conference: How Can We Make Conferences More Inclusive?” We made a big start towards answering this question at our roundtable conversation after the TEDx636 NYC/ TEDWomen simulcast event. Our panel, organized by Natalia Oberti Noguera and sponsored by NYWSE, included  Brittany McCandless (moderator), Adaora Udoji, Liza Sabater, Ritu Yadav, [...]

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The Goal is Gender Parity — at TED and Beyond

December 6, 2010

Is it possible that I haven’t been clear about what we’d like to see at TED conferences? In the conversations around TEDWomen, the relative absence of women and men of color TED programs, and concerns about whether TED as an organization is interested in inclusiveness, we may have focused mostly on constructive criticism and possible [...]

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I’m Speaking about TEDWomen — sort of

November 30, 2010

The much-discussed TEDWomen conference is just around the corner. With the official speaker lineup now published, and the website updated, we can now consider whether the TED organization has “heard” the criticisms and concerns about TEDWomen and incorporated them into their approach for the actual conference. Call me crazy, but I was hoping to see [...]

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A Quiet Thank You to our Transgender Colleagues

November 19, 2010

November 20th is Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day to honor people we have lost due to anti-transgender bias, prejudice, or hatred. While I can be thankful that I have no friends or family members who have died due to anti-transgender bias, I do have friends and family members who have been hurt by anit-transgender [...]

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Personal Branding: It’s Different for Girls

November 12, 2010

Personal branding is inescapable.¹ A person simply cannot participate in online forums, much less in their full career, without deliberately or unintentionally crafting and framing the way that they are seen by others. However, while personal branding is inescapable, it isn’t easy to make it work in our favor. Personal branding is fraught with choices [...]

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For Diversity & Inclusion, Don’t Treat All Differences The Same

November 5, 2010

I’m troubled by a trend in the conversation about ‘diversity and inclusion’ in organizations. Some Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) consultants and conversations are beginning to treat all forms of difference as equally important. For example, differences in the gender, orientation, physical ability, or ethnicity of organization members are presented along with differences in cognitive styles, [...]

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Pattern Recognition: How to spot female digital entrepreneurs

November 2, 2010

Smarts. Fire. Audacity. Technical chops. Focus. Strong network. Innovative product ideas. That’s what venture capitalists look for when they are selecting which entrepreneurs to support and which businesses to fund. Unfortunately, VCs tend to see these characteristics most often when the entrepreneurs themselves are “white, male, under 30, nerds, with no social life who dropped [...]

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Want More Women on Tech & TED Panels? Reject Meritocracy and Embrace Curation

October 27, 2010

Are there enough women¹ being included in public lineups of remarkable business people? Are enough women being selected for conference panels on Technology & Entrepreneurship, for the roster of the annual TED conferences, or even for the Silicon Alley Daily’s 100 Coolest New York Tech people? No. There are not enough² women being chosen for [...]

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Authentic From the Start-Up: 4 Tips from Cindy Gallop and IfWeRanTheWorld

October 21, 2010

If you were building an organization from the ground up, how would you “build authenticity in” from the very start? I had the chance to ask this question of Cindy Gallop, an entrepreneur and marketing/advertising/branding guru, who is the CEO of a start-up called IfWeRanTheWorld. IfWeRanTheWorld and Cindy have both been recommended to me by [...]

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Facebook for Women vs. Facebook Designed by Feminists: Different vs. Revolutionary

October 5, 2010

What would Facebook be like if it were designed by women? In my earlier post, I proposed that Facebook would look, feel and function differently if it had been designed by “women”. [What I actually was writing about what what Facebook might look like if it had been designed by Feminists-- but I used "women" [...]

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